The Buyer of any home, whether new or resale, must be prepared for some fun and excitement! They also must know that when working with a professional real estate agent, that agent will assist them from start to finish to make the home-buying process as least stressful as possible. This website is the first step in achieving that goal!

Denver Home Buyers Pay No Commissions!

I Work for Denver Home Buyers FREE of Charge!

Denver Home Buyers Pay No Commissions!  It's true!  Many home buyers just aren't aware of this very important fact.  What does this mean?  If you are looking to buy Denver Real Estate you can have me work for and represent you during the real estate transaction absolutely FREE!

Here is how it works.  When a seller lists their home, they list it at a commission rate with the listing broker/agent, and that commission is shared between the listing agent and the buyer's agent.  The part of the commission that is offered to the buyer's agent is called the co-op fee, cooperation, or as your Buyers Agent, a success fee.

Some buyers have used the logic that, in the end, they are really the ones paying all the commissions, but this is not true. Their thinking goes that the seller simply raises the asking price to cover the commissions.

The reality is, the home your are attempting to purchase has to appraise at or above the selling price in order for a loan to be funded. Meaning, the value of the house has to be at least what the buyer is offering to pay for the property, regardless of what cooperation was offered by the listing broker to me, your Buyer's Agent, or the total commissions paid to the listing broker by the Seller.

Therefore, if you are looking to buy Denver Real Estate, you can have me do all the work finding your Dream Home for FREE!  It's a win-win situation for all Buyers!

FINANCING

I always advise my clients, regardless of their credit credentials and experience in buying homes, that they contact a lender to get pre-approved for a mortgage. With the multitude of Internet Mortgage Lenders advertising for your business, it is difficult to know who can do the best job for you. My experience has been that the personality, industry knowledge, and flexibility of a Loan Officer is the key to good service and rates. Click here to go to my Mortgage page for a list of Lenders I have worked with, respect and keep up on all the recent changes in lending guidelines. 

HOME INSPECTIONS

Home Inspections are highly recommended (they are addressed specifically in the preprinted portion of the Real Estate Contract) when buying a home or condo . They permit, within a specified time after contract acceptance, the Buyer their choice of types and number of inspections. The companies listed below are extremely qualified to perform whole house inspections as well as radon gas testing for you.  Go HERE first and get a tour of what to expect to be included in your inspection.

InspectPro

HouseMaster

1st Step Home Inspections, LLC

National Property Inspections Front Range Real Estate Inspectors, Inc.  

FIREPLACE INPSECTIONS AND REPAIRS

Tom Quinlan is a Certified Technician and Instructor for gas fireplaces.  Fireplaces are so very specialized and each one so unique that Tom has found his professional niche in being one of the very best in the industry at repairing them.  Contact Tom at

www.quinlangasfireplaces.com.

HOME WARRANTIES

Although not required, a Home Warranty covering such items as the hot water heater, disposal, furnace and dishwasher, is recommended when buying a re-sale home; and can be purchased by anyone for only a few hundred dollars.

Blue Ribbon Home Warranty

HOMEOWNER'S INSURANCE

You will need to select a Homeowner's Insurance Company as soon as possible after contract acceptance.  There's actually a deadline date that you will insert in the preprinted portion of the real estate contract for this to occur.  I highly recommend that your call several companies to compare pricing and coverage.  The best pricing should be available with the company you currently have your auto insurance with.

FINAL STEPS TO CLOSING

1.  Title Company  The title company will prepare your closing statement with the final closing figures and forward it to us for review.  My policy is to review the title company's closing statement with my clients prior to you signing the closing documents.

2. Cashier's Check    The title company will only accept certified funds in the form of a certified or cashier's check. THE CASHIERS CHECK SHOULD BE MADE PAYABLE TO YOU. You will then endorse the check over to the Title Company after you sign your real estate and loan documents.

3. Going to the Closing  An appointment for your closing will be set with the title company for you to sign your real estate and loan documents. You will be presented with your loan documents and the Title Closer will review each document with you prior to you signing.  DON'T FORGET TO BRING YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE!  In most cases the closing will take 1-2 hours, assuming we had the opportunity to review your settlement statement prior and the number documents in your loan package.  After all documents are signed you will then endorse the check over to the title company and, at that time, you're a new homeowner!

MOLD INFORMATION

Copyright National Association of REAL TORS@ Headquarters: 430 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL. 60611 DC Office: 700 Eleventh Street, NW, Second Floor, Washington, DC 20001

Recently, mold and its effects have been in the news. First, a Delaware court has ruled that residents in a number of buildings located in the same town could not bring a class-action lawsuit against the building owners for failing to properly remediate mold on their properties. Second, the National Academy of Science has issued a report discussing the health effects of exposure to indoor mold.

No. 02C-10-212 (Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 16,2004). [Note: This opinion was not published in an official reporter and therefore should not be cited as authority. Please consult counsel before relying on this opinion].

B. National Academy of Sciences Report

At the request of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies ("Institute") convened a panel of nine experts ("Panel") to consider the health effects of damp or moldy environments by reviewing the relevant scientific literature on this topic. The Institute has now issued a report summarizing the Panel's findings and conclusions. Click here to purchase a copy of the report.

The Panel made the following recommendations in its report. First, the Panel found mold exposure could be reduced if building designers and builders used existing technical knowledge to limit dampness in new buildings. The Panel recommended that building guidelines be issued to prevent indoor dampness. Second, the Panel concluded that there is no quantifiable method of measuring exposure to microorganisms caused by mold, which makes it difficult to determine the health effects caused by mold exposure. The Panel recommended that exposure assessment methods need to be developed in order to help future large-scale epidemiological studies in this area.

The Panel reached the following conclusions about the health effects of mold exposure. The Panel concluded that evidence showed a link between mold exposure and upper respiratory tract symptoms, coughing, and wheezing in healthy people, while causing asthma symptoms in sensitized individuals. However, the Panel determined that the evidence was insufficient to establish a clear, causal connection between exposure and these conditions. The Panel found the evidence suggested a possible connection between mold exposure and lower respiratory illness in otherwise healthy children, but the evidence was not strong enough to make a conclusive determination.

Otherwise, the Panel's report stated that there was inadequate or insufficient evidence to establish a connection between the many other diseases and conditions which have been associated with mold exposure. These include: cancer, fatigue, reproductive effects, lower respiratory illness in otherwise healthy individuals, skin symptoms, and neuropsychiatry symptoms.

For more information about mold, click here .

RADON INFORMATION

For information about radon gas, click here .

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EXPANSIVE SOILS

For information about Colorado's expansive and swelling soils, click here , and for the states' publication for the homeowner on the subject, click here.

EIFS STUCCO APPLICATION SYSTEM vs. HARD COAT STUCCO SYSTEM

For information about the EIFS Stucco system...click here.  Go to the great video files to view once you're into the site!

For information about Hard Coat systems...click here.

 Recent Developments in Mold Claims

A Delaware court has considered whether a mold lawsuit should proceed as a class action lawsuit.

Ricky Manuel, Carla Kees, and Catherine Kellam (collectively, "Class Representatives") lived in apartment buildings located in the Town of Elsmere, Delaware ("Town"). The Class Representatives claimed that 38 apartment buildings were not properly remediated after Hurricane Hugo had caused all of the buildings to flood in 1989. The mold growth eventually caused the Town to condemn all of the buildings. The Class Representatives filed a lawsuit against the owners of the 38 apartment buildings, and then filed a motion seeking class action certification on behalf of the residents in the 38 apartment buildings.

The Superior Court of the State of Delaware, New Castle County, denied the Class Representative's motion to certify the lawsuit as a class action. A class action lawsuit occurs when a group or class of individuals shares a common set of facts which allows the court to try all of the claims together in the same proceeding. The court went through the various legal requirements a class representative must show in order to create a class action lawsuit: numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy. In this case, the numerosity element was not contested, as there was no dispute that all of the buildings had mold conditions.

However, the court found that the Class Representatives had failed to establish the other three elements for a class action lawsuit. First, the court found the mold in each of the 38 apartment buildings could have been caused by a wide variety of factors and so ruled that there was no "commonality" in the claims against the apartment building owners, as how the mold problems were created would likely require a building-by- building determination. Second, the court also found that the typicality requirement also was not met, as the evidence before the court revealed that it was legally questionable whether certain Class Representatives had a legal right to reside in the buildings which served as the basis for this lawsuit or had lived in the buildings long enough to have a claim. Third, the court ruled that it was also questionable whether the Class Representatives would be entitled to recover any damages even if the allegations in the lawsuit were accepted by the court, causing the court to determine that the Class Representatives were also not adequate representatives of the class. Finally, the court also stated that the unique factual issues for each building would make this lawsuit unmanageable to proceed as a class action lawsuit. Thus, the court rejected the Class Representative's motion to certify the lawsuit as a class action.

Manuel v. ElsmerePark Club, L.P.,